To be honest, I've never heard about EvE online before I started playing in 2014.Before I started playing EvE I was playing Fighter Sims (IL-2, Rise of Flight, you name it).I was pretty much burnt out by the Flight Sim community and was looking for something new and one day I watched some videos on my favorite YouTube channel (Forgotten weapons, good channel you should give it a try) and strangely there was a video about a game called "EvE" in my video recommendations. I watched it and I ended up watching EvE videos almost for the whole rest of the night and after that I started to read some Blogs about the game and in one of those the guy had a link to the trial period in it. Well, I thought "what could possibly go wrong? Searched the Internet for a fancy In game name (and no, I'm not french) and started playing the free trial and got killed twice in my venture by belt rats only a few day later and I effing loved it. Did the SOE Arc and loved it. I got podded, gate camped and I loved it. My killboard looks like **** (well, the kb of this account, the other accounts kb would cause too much of carebear tears) but I simply dgaf. I just played the game and loved it, I even did the Distribution Missions. *lol*Sometimes i just parked my ship and watched some planets, because why not.I had to take a half year EvE break because of health reasons but after that I came back and stayed.Well, since that 26th of September 2014, my trusty BF 109G-6 and my Sopwith Camel haven't been used and as it looks right now, they won't be used in the near future, if ever again.

Rigth now I have three accounts, this one and a bad guy account (not used atm) and one just for Industrial production.

Infinite Point

Test Alliance Please Ignore

First hear about the game, oh it must have been 2003 - 2004, a friend of mine was playing, and afaik he had been playing all through the beta. I was still a young buck at the time, and had yet to be introduced to the world of online gaming, let alone mmo's (okay I was like 16-17 so not THAT young, but was going through an RTS phase so mmo's didn't interest me much) and frankly the game just seemed too strange and too different from what I was used too. and world of warcraft was just around the corner and was about ready to consume the next few years of my life.

fast forward to 2007, I was getting bored and burned out AF of wow, and I had just been introduced to firefly by a friend of mine, which reignited a passion for sci-fi. so looking for something different, I did a google search for the best sci-fi mmo's and eve came in top of the list. Registered for a trial account and logged on in, had the lovely "here is your ship, this is how you move, this is how you target, shoot this thing, okay now **** off and good luck" tutorial. Things went smoothly for the first week or so, and I ended up subscribing, spent most of my time sitting in a belt mining with my probe (which was a mining frigate at the time) slowly trying to work my way up for a scythe, which was one of the better if not best mining cruisers.I had heard about jet-can mining as a way to improve efficiency, and so had started doing that, although it was still a painfully slow process.it was then i got my first introduction to can-flipping. not knowing any better, and having literally zero experience with pvp at that time I was enraged. i had just been stolen from and I was gonna teach that ******* a lesson, so I flew back to station, jumped in my (probably ****-fit) rifter and headed back to the belt to deliver him some justice... and very quickly ended up a smoldering wreck.but i wasn't about to let that stop me, oh no, my blood was boiling and my brain had shut right the hell off. so i raced back in my pod, got in my probe, slapped whatever guns I had laying around on it and headed back out there... and to no ones surprise had a repeat of the first encounter.

now to his credit, the guy who can flipped me was gracious enough to message me, and try to give me some tips since I was obviously new, and I'm ashamed to admit that in my anger I wasn't in any mood to listen, and probably produced some grade A salt for him, and logged off for the night.the next morning I was back at it, determined to rebuild everything I had lost, and not fall for the same tricks twice. this time mining in a rookie ship, but being much more careful to do regular pickups with my hauler.

over the next couple of weeks I had replaced my probe, replaced the rifter, and was even most of the way towards saving up for that scythe, when i heard through some source or another (can't remember where exactly) that there was some money to be made in transporting shuttles out to null-sec and selling them at a markup.Jackpot I figured, this was the perfect way for me to get the rest of the money for that scythe, all I had to do was buy up as many shuttles as I could afford, load them into my industrial, fly them out to null sec and I should have myself a cruiser by the end of day.

now i new that null-sec was more dangerous than high, but that was really about it, didn't know about bubbles, didn't know about the lack of concord, nothing except this kinda nebulous "its more dangerous", which coming from WoW I assumed to mean that the rats where harder... well no problem, I wasn't gonna be in a belt anyways just straight to the station and I should be fine right?

so all of my worldly possessions are in this hauler, and quite predictably I didn't make it more than 1 jump into null before I'd been caught in a bubble camp, frankly i'm surprised I even made it that far. and to this day I have to imagine the WTF moment from those campers, catching an untanked, unfitted in any way industrial, filled with nothing but shuttles.

I'll admit, that second setback, especially so close on the heals of the last one, did manage to drive me away from the game for a few months, but something about the universe had bit me. and before long I was back at it again, this time having done some research, and with a plan in place to find myself a corp and start learning some pvp... but this is getting fairly long winded as it is, so I shall continue this story another time.

MY TITAN WAS FITTED WITH THE FOLLOWING

In 2004, I learned about Eve when it was described in a scifi game forum as “like X2, but multiplayer”. Read chronicles, lore, etc .. liked it and decided to check it out .. pieced together a crude PM in French for the only guy who had buddy invites left and so I got into the game.

Undocked with 5k in my wallet, no tutorial and had so much fun reading the info page of every module I looted from belts. A few days later, my first CEO picked me up in a belt, while I mined in a T1 frig next to him, 2 jumps from the starter system. Everyone in the corp was mining for weeks and months in cruisers / frigs / industrials, to finally get one of those new mighty battleships, the pinnacle of raw power .. to put mining lasers on it. We were all in awe, when the CEO brought his impressive miningpoc to the belt.

Key goal for many players was the Raven, the ultimate PvE Isk printing machine for those overpowered L4 missions. The way to get one was .. mine in a cruiser, mine, mine more, mine another couple of weeks. Have someone with good skills reprocess the ore as that required more skills and standings back then. Buying a BPC and null minerals from a hub and then have a corp mate build it. Only very few BS were for sale and they had quite some markup. I personally found mining to be boring and got more into belt ratting.

Then the first war dec hit our high sec industry corp. I whelped a few tackle frigs, was told “don’t give them easy kills, stay away” .. which was my personal trigger to check out low sec. A little while later, that gate from my low sec to a null region became more and more interesting, one day I made a second account as a scout, sneaked in seconds after downtime, burned through a few unguarded bubbles and spent the next two months ninja ratting without docking.

Shortly after that, my industry corp joined a null alliance. Fridays became the day of convoy duty: escorting fleets of industrials and sometimes one of those new and so slow freighters. Quite a lot of the escorted ships were headshotted via logon traps, after hours of travel. For me, null was very profitable, but not really great fun. In order to experience something else, I created a third account: a station trader. I simply wanted to check how long it would take to make the 5k starter cash into 1b.

Years passed, I also joined a low sec pirate alliance, played FW, PI, exploration, ran POS, COSMOS missions, was CEO of industry and pirate corps. At some point in time, I ran about 15 accounts, mostly by Plex.

I feel that the important part is actually having fun. Logging on should be something to look forward to, not something that is a chore. And not logging in for a week or month should not really cause withdrawal symptoms. If boredom appeared, I liked to do something opposite to my current play style: after a career as miner, ganking someone in high sec. After a life as pirate, start a PvE toon. There are still several areas in Eve which I never tried out, but still plan to to do .. soon(tm)

Caldari Provisions

Caldari State

Im not a vet at all (only 3-4 months old) but i am ashamed to say that the first time i played the game i was mining in a hauler, i literally didnt even know what mining ships were or if they even EXISTED

Insurrection

Mercenary Coalition

Eve Online….so, I am sitting in my office, and my buddy comes in and says “hey, ever play any online games?” Right, so I was like…38 when I tried my first online game. I think it was some form of D&D but with pixels and a bunch of sperging nerds doing repetitive crap, like mining to make cod pieces and fishing…..

Then he said “Dude..it is a cold, harsh game man, like you can really **** people off and kill them. But I need your help, I need you to shoot the rats, and keep them off me while I mine….”

I am like, right on, so I am thinking I am going to be in this cave with a head lantern and a shot gun shooting “rats” as my buddy mines for whatever. Sounds like the other game, but I get a gun so I am good.

So, after an agonizing number of hours of trying to down load the game via the telephone modem, I get the game fired up and low and behold…it is a space game. “A SPACE GAME…. WHAT FORM OF NERD SPERGING CRAP IS THIS!!!” My buddy says, “it’s cool man, just give it a chance…”

I gave it chance, and I learned that learning skills suck donkey balls. And I found out it takes FOREVER to make money to buy anything that has some sort of teeth. Of course, my dual tank, split weapon systems was the ultimate poopsock, and was ready for anything.

We ended up in a “Ghost Corp” apparently as the guys from the “war” with m0o, One, and other peeps I could not grasp nor really care about, hide out and recoup their losses or take a break. Soon after I had an issue of humping rocks, and could not for the life of me understand how this is “fun”

It is relaxing they said, it takes the edge off they said…no, it drove me nuts, my leg is bouncing up and down like a jack hammer and I had all the attention span of ADHD squirrel. With that and my already crappy grumpy attitude (Grumpy comes in later in this game for real), we started our own corp. Now we are talking, no more being a sheep…now let’s build something……right back out humping rocks.

My buddy, realized I was getting itchy so he took me out of High Sec into Null sec. And then soon after, a long 2 hour trip, I was caught, and rightly popped and podded back home. And I loved it!! It was awesome, I am like “Why the f’!! haven’t we been playing this part of the game??!!” And then answer I got…well, we don’t want to lose stuff…”

I was beside myself and jumped into the autism pool called the “Recruitment Channel” and met Alpha Omega. Which later he turned out to be a scammer and what not. But was recruited into Igneus Auctorita. A corp I grew to love, and later became the “The best worst corp in GS”.

Ended up as a director of Igne, as the COCEO and CEO “disappeared” after they ended up in some resort in NZ or something and something to do with a cabana boy and a ski pole. How that ties in, have no clue.

However, I had my hands full with a corp full of autistic squirrels. Loved each and every one of them. However, they all saw me as being Grumpier than Dead Tear, and I became envious of the “Newbee” that flew tackle on fleet ops…

Nope, what I had to deal with is my peeps trying to **** off our allies, starting the EBAY war and having Sesfan, Darius, The Mittani and other notables climbing all over my ass for my special snowflakes being terrible pubbies. I have no doubt why my CEO’s bailed and went skiing with the cabana boy.

During that time, I would “escape” to lo-sec and solo kill/pirate or whatever. Essentially, I would go up, and suicide gank in hi-sec or lo sec just to relax. The high light is to get some dude getting irate as I take out 3 of his mining barges with my plated disco Raven, and he sends me warm wishes like “I hope your a$$hole seals shut and you die of intestinal blockage!!” With that I was able to go back to the grind of running a Null-Sec corp in an Alliance that truthfully was one of the funniest times I have ever had. The amount of meta gaming was amazing, loved it.

Got involved with Black Ops with Goons before the advent of Stealth Bombers…..yeah we had some wild fits from Pandemic who were teaching us not to be so crappy. And we utterly gutted alliances with a hand full of our toxic grinding and killing of their sheep. It was so much fun.

So looking back at how I started, and now in semi-retirement, I am so glad I finally learned the fun part of Eve….

Universal Exos

this is not my first round of Eve I'm talking about it's my most recent return but I think the story is worth mentioning

the title of story orcas are not allowed in 0.0

this time around I chose to be an explorer in the past I wasn't able to get the hang of the probing but I loved doing the mini-games in the way of hacking so I forced myself to learn to do it once I got the hang of it I no longer got migraines from it

after my first month I started going into Wormhole space every time I went in there I felt like I was going to have a ******* heart attack it literally lives up to its nickname spooky space

then I started watching wingspans videos on YouTube so I skill injected into stealth bombers I applied to Chances Corporation and of course my application was rejected but after all my character was only a month old at that time

then I got an invite for pandemic horde instead so I took that had a lot of fun out there I miss my friends out thereI was able to have fun out there for 6 months it's the first time I've ever cried over a video game cuz I can't play with my friends anymore it still hurts to this day

I chose to bend over backwards for the miners in horde I designed my character for Fleet boosting so my whole entire time there I was trying to make my character into a support character for the alliance but cuz I was flying an orca I got kicked out it's possible there's more to it than that but they never told me what it was I'm a person willing to change his behavior to make people happier but if nobody tells me what's wrong tell it's too late then how can I fix what I'm doing wrong

also when I was out there I was building up an industry infrastructure my goals were to basically build the mining ships they would need build some of the combat ships they would need but of course all this stuff takes time cuz I was doing everything from scratch I was also training up for a Force axillary

now I'm sitting in Empire space mining crappy asteroids and building frigates and cruisers and I still go into Wormhole space

now I'm going back into the game when I get paid tomorrow I'm going to put $100 into the game and try A New Path without making a new character this time

Capital Solutions Inc

Been in EvE off and on for 14 years now...(started in 2003). Semi-retired now but I still get on and play from time to time. Most of the time reminiscing of "the good-old-days" with some old corp mates. Stories of ships with 3 MWDs going 60k m/s, the C6 Magnetar, self tracking disruptor hack, etc etc. Most of that stuff has been long patched over I'm sure and if I were to return to EvE full time I'd have to completely relearn a new game.

[My first goal was to make as much ISK as possible. I mined a lot, maxxed out some mining skills, got hired by a random alliance to sit in a rorqual 24/7 and boost their fleets. (back when you could still sit in a POS and do that) but my game experience didn't really start until I made a few alts and joined more social corporations.]

I remember doing all the typical rookie mistakes. Shield and armor tanking, putting lasers on non-amarr ships. Mining in haulers. I'm sure we all did that stuff at one point. One of my first corps was a total noob corp. Nobody had over 10 million SP, and one of the directors, a self-proclaimed vet alt, stole off the corp's wallet after a few weeks. It was at that point that I realized EvE was more than a game, it was a massive community of players, some good some bad, but real human people with all their real human traits and flaws. You're probably all like "DUH" but I think fundamentally it's easy to get lost in all the technology and explosions, and forget about the social experience that is EvE Online.

My corp bounced around between a few different alliances, a few high sec wars, and slowly I figured out ship fitting, combat tactics, ship class roles. Most importantly I figured out the types of people I enjoyed flying with.

14 years later, the game isn't even the same game I started playing, T3s, wormholes, planetary industry and many more features have reshaped the modern EvE. However the game still retains the same types of people and in that the experience and comradeship of flying in New Eden remains the same classic and adventurous experience it always has.